One of the first posts we ever wrote on Wings Over Scotland, back in November 2011, recorded the fact that total daily sales of newspapers in Scotland had dipped below a million for the first time ever (to a total of 986,657).

The six-and-a-half years that have followed have been probably the most tumultuous in Scottish history – an independence referendum, a Brexit referendum and the death of Rangers, to name but three of the significant events that have taken place in just two-thirds of a single decade.

At the very least, then, you’d imagine that the period might have given the declining newspaper industry one last dead cat bounce.

The like-for-like sales total of the same newspapers today is 492,353.

From that article, these are the figures for dailies between July 2011 and July 2012:

The Sundays have done only fractionally better, dropping 49.8% from 1,008,239.

Now, plunging newspaper sales are widely held to be a worldwide phenomenon. But that isn’t actually true.

And if the media of any country on Earth should have been in a strong position to even temporarily fight a local downward trend with informed, fair, insightful coverage of exciting national events, it should have been Scotland.

Except that Scotland doesn’t really HAVE a media. Most of its press is owned outside Scotland, and a lot of it outside the UK. Much of the content in all of its best-selling papers is imported from English editions, with a few homegrown pages slotted in.

And of course, the overwhelming majority of “Scottish” newsprint (and therefore the papers-driven broadcast media) espouses the political views of only one half of the Scottish population. There are left-wing papers and right-wing papers, Labour papers and Tory papers, even Lib Dem papers, but when it comes to the defining issue of Scottish life since 2011 only the Unionist side has had a voice on the newsstands.

(The National has only existed for half of that time and accounts for barely more than 1% of all daily Scottish newspaper sales.)

We’re sure that in those circumstances it’s a coincidence that sales in Scotland have plummeted faster than almost anywhere else, despite the unique catalogue of events that should have been selling papers by the vanload to a highly-engaged population (85% turned out in the referendum) that was hungry for solid information and analysis.

You’d actually have to extend the bottom of that graph to make room for the size of Scotland’s monster drop. Losing half your sales in six and a half years is a huge underperformance even on Europe-wide trends – around twice as bad, in fact – and life in Belgium and France and the Netherlands and Ireland and Germany and Denmark has by and large been rather less exciting in that time than it has in Scotland.

The SNP’s shock landslide victory in 2011 and the independence referendum that it triggered should have been an open goal and a gift for any remotely competent media.

But Scotland’s is almost uniquely inadequate, inept and unfit for purpose, and instead it reacted with such monumental, sour and sustained petulance to those unexpected occurences that the people of a country which once read more newspapers per head of population than anyone on the planet have turned their backs on it.

That ‘monumental, sour and sustained petulance’ displayed by the papers to people that no longer read them is similar to the monumental, sour and sustained petulance displayed by ‘Scottish’ Labour to people that no longer vote for them. Is there, perhaps, any connection?

Rev, with the Sunday Post and Sunday Mail figures, you have taken the Average Circulation Scotland figure but with the two others I’ve checked (Daily Record & The Sun on Sunday) you have taken the Paid Single Copies figure.

Fergus Green says:
16 August, 2018 at 4:36 pmFish suppers are now served in polystyrene pockets.

We don’t need newspapers any more.

To hell and damnation with those polystyrene pockets … bring back the Sunday Post wrappers I say! 😀

p.s. to hell with the alleged WM government health warnings about wrapping oor fish suppers up in the Sunday Post. I treat that warning the same as all other WM health warnings … with utter contempt! They have said eggs, salt and god knows what else is bad for you but then turn about face and say they aint that bad after all so it’s Sunday Post wrappings for me! 😀

All they had to do was provide balanced journalism. They did not have to declare support for Independence. It was simple but they decided on unionist propaganda. They decided to lie every day to their remaining readers.

The cause is staring them in the face and they still refuse to acknowledge it.

The decline seems to be marginally lower on the Daily Heil/Diana tabloids – presumably as their audience is literally dying?

Like I said to our local shop owner (Onestop so Tesco franchise) I don’t know anyone under 40 who actually buy a (physical) newspaper. He was like “No, no lots of people do” and then a week later said “you know you’re right its all pensioners plus a few white English 20-somethings buying the Sun”. This is in Leics.

Nice to see the Daily Record continues to decline at a rate of knots – it was always a worthless rag, long before our opinions became this polarised.

That’s the beauty of capitalism. When a business no longer becomes commercially viable, it fails. Let the journalists whinge and whine. They’re just annoyed that the populace doesn’t hang on their every word any more.

The Herald and Sunday Herald are not counted as “national” newspapers, but as regional. Their publishers withdrew them from the national figures, that is why their figures are missing – different counting times.

To give a small example of how daft the papers can be. I cover sport, and, when I hit 65 and gave-up the day job, I have covered club rugby at weekends, just to keep my hand in.

The Herald, back then, had stopped covering anything below Glasgow and Edinburgh in the PRO14 (PRO12 as it was then), but, I persuaded Donald Cowey, the then Herald Sports Editor – and a fine Independence supporter, that he ought to at least cover Ayr and Glasgow Hawks, the two Glasgow District teams in the Premiership, the top-flight of the club game, since I was fed-up with retired doctors, lawyers, accountants and business-men – the Herald’s core readership – asking me at games, why these teams were not covered.

Donald agreed, and the Herald started covering the Premiership. Then, Donald found the escape tunnel, since when, the Herald sports desk (a more-or-less joint undertaking between daily and Sunday Herald) has had more captains than Cunard at its peak.

All these guys have been football guys, who cannot see the benefit of covering club rugby. Their so-called “Rugby Correspondent” also, does not believe club rugby matters, so they have stopped covering, and, in another small way, their circulation has coninued downward.

Right now, in Scottish Rugby, the SRU is introducing a new six-club competition – Super-6. This is causing major ructions within the game and threatens to do more damage to the SRU than Brexit will to Scotland as a whole.

Neither The Herald nor The Scotsman, the two supposed “rugby” papers has touched this divisive subject, the rugby websites which toe the SRU line are also loath to broach the subect, other than to cut and paste SRU positive press releases. But, two rugby blogs which are touching it, have seen their following go through the roof.

One, a one-man operation run, for fun, by a retired rugby writer, has had over 30,000 hits in the past month. Small by Wings standard, but, this shows – there is a market out there for better, more in-depth media coverage of the game. Sadly, in rugby, as with Independence the Scottish media is missing a trick.

In other words, the entire British Nationalist paper reading population of Scotland is slightly more than the population of Edinburgh. It’s as if all the other cities, everyone in the borders, and highlands an islands have stopped reading them.

In fact it’s worse than that because the reading population is still spread out, so they have to cover the costs of distribution all across Scotland, for a readership a bit bigger than Edinburgh.

@ Donald Anderson – the Herald and the Sunday Herald are apparently classified as “regional”, not “national”, like the Press and Journal. Although “parochial” might be a better description of that particular rag.

These techniques only work if the forum is unaware of them, the reverse of that is that to stop them working, it needs just about everybody to be aware, otherwise you can watch the forum get destroyed bit, by bit, by bit.

Sales have halved, and halve the country support independence and therefore are no longer well served by the ‘papers’. It would be naive to draw a direct mathematical conclusion (half=half) but it would just as naive to discount a partial relationship between the two figures!

Reverse that shoogly logic and does that imply (roughly) that the BritNat half are the ones still buying the BritNat biased ‘news’ papers? Again, there will be a correlation because many BritNats will feel well served by London output blended by ‘local’ SNPBaaad stories.

Only see older people buying newspapers, considering we are both retired they must be older than us.
I think many would have gone to the wall if they were not being propped up be the government in Westminster. Well at least the ahem, “Scottish” ones.

If local libraries stopped talking these papers their circulations would plummet.

I see on twitter that Scotland in Union tried to get the local Tories in Dundee to film the Independence march and the local paper had it on their boards this morning ‘creepy filming’. If they had any brains they could just watch Independence Live.

Today the local paper were helpful in giving the March publicity complete with a map of the route. A friend showed me it.

The Medium the message.
BBC Distorting Scotland at 6.30 pm tonight.
“John Swinney” is directly responsible for a wee 11 year old autistic girl soiling herself and her mother being forced to keep her off school.
A nutjob waving a saltire is jailed for 12 years for terrorist offences.
The number of citizens sectioned by police under the mental health act has rocket up.
There are opportunities for our Fishing Industry when we leave the EU. I gave up.
Hitler’s Germany didn’t have as absoluter and unflinching a Propaganda Unit as the Brit Nat BBC.
I’m sure the 61 year olds watching were horrified about quite how shitey Scotland is to live in.
Helter Skelter right enough.

With your sporting connections I’m wondering if perhaps you know roughly how much it costs for a newspaper to access horse racing form/stats etc. The National could surely tap into a huge potential market if only it covered ‘the cuddies’ – we know that for many readers, esp manual workers, its a top reason for them to buy a paper at all.

If a similar media situation was reported on some other nation of Europe (e.g. Ukraine), the politicians and media in the UK would be screaming that Putin is obviously doing it, and it’s an affront to democracy, and demand free press etc.

Not in Scotland. Salmond had to go to foreign media to get his own show. British media gave UKIP their own show for years (you know it as ‘BBC Question Time’), but that was ok, because more than 10% of English voters were determined to deal with Johnny Foreigner.

There was a time when most households in Scotland took both a national daily and a local evening newspaper. Many bought three separate titles on a Sunday. I remember those days well because I got on my bike to deliver them!

No doubt the newspaper editors will rush to blame the internet for their decline – just goes to show how deluded they are.

” … If you are a British Nationalist you don`t buy a newspaper because you also know it is all Fake News and lies.”

Ah! Scot, you just don’t properly understand the mindsets involved in the theory you propound. Thing is you really needs must be a bit of a psychologist to understand it.

The Scottish independence supporters do not read it for the reason you state – Not only do they know it is fake news but they actually want it to be the truth in order to show the Britnats what the real truth is.

The unionists also know it is fake news but they want it to be true and to be able to brandish the publication in the face of the indy supporters AND the non-aligned to brainwash them into subliminally accept it is true.

Then there’s those, “dugs in the street”, well those dogs cannot read – but they know anyway that it is fake news as dogs have senses we humans don’t understand and the poor wee beasties can taste the lies when they go and fetch the paper for their masters & mistress’. Dogs are tuned into the thought waves of their owners and can sense the fake news upsets their human best friend and the dogs don’t like that.

So everyone knows it is fake news but only the, (cough!), Professional Journalists actually think it is true and the
wee dugs hate the taste of fake news but can’t tell anyone because they cannot speak.

Look on the bright side – the subjects always is good for a laugh – except for those wee dugs because the fake news leaves a bad after taste in their mouths.

Thanks for the interesting story in the Courier about the March on Saturday, I see that the usual suspects led by holocaust denier and failed UKIPper Alistair McConnachie will be in attendance with their anti-march protest.

This time a bit different from just having a megaphone they’ll be filming the marchers too, so mind a wear a smile abody and look your best 🙂

“The Force for Good unionist group also said they would be in attendance, filming marchers to “reveal the truth” on the “ridiculous” claims of event organisers.”

Sorry Ian, I was more a writer than a production guy. As far as I can remember, all the runners and riders information comes in, “page ready”, maybe from PA, so, cost ought not to be a huge factor.

Funnily-enough, The National uses Martin Hannan, who knows his cuddies, and I reckon, if given his head, could do a great job for them.

The National, however, is mainly freelance-driven, they don’t have, as far as I know, a big core staff,and they don’t want it to be too-popular, in case it affects the lieks of The Herald, which has a bigger advertising take.

I need the newspaper, it’s a matter of life or death for me because I heat my home totally with firewood, and get my mothers old newspapers, to light the kindling, mostly the Tory courier, sometimes the Press and journal.
It the only time I read the paper, quite interesting to see how their lies from two years previous panned out.

The lying tractors that are propaganda writers masquerading as journalists in Scotland run down and criticise all aspects of Scottish society.

Oh sorry correction – the only part of Scotland they do not rubbish is of course the media in Scotland.

Oh sorry further correction – they do not criticise the Tories.

Why is that then? Answer – the media in Scotland is not Scottish therefore these tractor broadcasters/journalists know it is British therefore it is beyond criticism. Rule brittania and god save the queen and we stood alone etc etc etc. The Tories are as Scottish as Morris dancing so again they are superior beings and are beyond criticism. Land of hope and glory etc etc.

The media in Scotland stinks. The media in Scotland needs flushing away followed by a bottle of Domestos just to make sure none of it remains.

Now that most of us have CH we have no use for them to light the fire.
They are of little use for anything else. As more and more of us get CH the sales figs will go down further.
My question is the sales figures related to the open fires still in use.

” … I see the “English Plant” is still trying to bully his way around this forum.”

Thing is, Danny, that there is a great difference between holding a different view from the SNP even if you are a member and claiming the party is not sincere in what they do.

The SNP is very unlike every other United Kingdom political party in that it is led from the bottom upwards. Nicola Sturgeon cannot dictate party policy. Policy must come from the membership and all members can propose a motion at branch level as long as they have a seconder.

Every proposal has to be entered in the minutes of the meeting and acted upon. If it is unopposed and no amendments proposed it goes forward to Constituency Association level. If, however, it is opposed or amendments proposed these are debated and voted upon and after it gets to Constituency level that process continues.

Eventually if it get through the system it goes through the same process at Annual Conference and is debated and perhaps amended and either passed or failed by a democratic vote of the delegates and Nicola Sturgeon has only the one vote like everyone else.

Where is there room for backsliding as these anti-Sturgeon/anti-SNP people would have Wingers believe? You might get an MP, MSP or even a councillor get too comfortable and backslide to retain their seat but they cannot get away with it against the party rank and file.

If even a faction of the rank & file thought Nicola, or anyone else, was slacking then they only need turn up at the branch with a proposal and a seconder and even if the motion fails the would be slacker gets a prod with a sharp stick.

You will notice that even if an MSP or MP is being wrongly accused by the media but is innocent they will withdraw themselves from the party whip because if they don’t they could find the rank and file start taking action.

That is why it is daft to suggest Nicola, or anyone else in the party hierarchy, is dragging their feet. Yet I doubt that anyone agrees with everything. They accept the majority opinions. note also that if they do not accept the majority the resign and either become independent or join another party.

On topic, I’m a 33 year old bloke who has never bought a paper for personal use, only ever picked up a metro to clean my boots, or bought the Daily Ranger for my folks (in the past, they’ve now been weened off it).

In the digital age it’s no surprise that print is dying, but as the good Rev points out for some unknown reason it’s accelerated here in this fair country. Not that I’ll shed any tears when they finally start going bust.

O/T Socrates McSporran @ 5:43pm

Try The Offside Line for rugby coverage, I’m slightly biased as I know the owner/main reporter, but they broach the super 6 catastrofuck and aren’t shy at prodding the SRU bigwigs in the ribs.

Dave mcewan hill Yes, not surprising given they didn’t release the real poll figures from Yougov ,conducted on the 3rd Aug !
They didn’t mention the real question they asked…Should Scotland be Independent as soon as possible !

” … Are the ‘Scottish’ newspapers being kept afloat by Westminster? Of course they are.”

Yes! The licence fee is put into the Treasury as it is payment for permission from Westminster to view live broadcasts.

Then the Treasury makes an annual grant to the BBC from general taxation and that means, whether you pay the government for permission to view or not your tax is used to fund the BBC which is still a private corporation. The BBC also sells stuff all over the World and The BBC World Service sends propaganda for the Government all over the World but the answer to the question is that the BBC funds reporters to the work for the Scottish Press with your tax money.

BBC Mis-Reporting Scotland went into overdrive tonight with SNPbad stories.
I have never seen such garbage being passed off as news…I suppose I better get used to it as I live in North Britain and we are all shite!

Rangers seem to be alive and kicking. Aberdeen and Edinburgh voted No. plenty of Rangers fans voted Yes. Concentrate on persuading people rather than alienating them. If there is an indyref2 the margins will be small. Keep to reporting stats. Pettiness never wins.

I agree. Stop generalising. There are obviously people who are Britnat Nazis who attend rangers games but there are also a lot of decent people as well – some of whom will have voted yes and more may vote yes in the future. The same goes for other football clubs and other sports. A mixture of decent and not so decent folk.

If we are all one UK family/country, as the Britnats would say, it did not seem that way when the Scottish football clubs were given the cold shoulder by the English Premier league – even though there are Welsh clubs in the league. Better together – not for Scottish football.

It is difficult to be entirely sure but a factor in the relatively larger decline in Scottish newspaper sales may be due to the unrelenting negativity on the front pages. Almost to a man the papers have taken to not only fighting Scottish independence but also unseating the Scottish Government. This makes for tedious, unrelenting negativity.

I don’t watch the BBC news output, not just because it opposes the political position I hold but also because it is just so damned depressing. The world can be enough of a grind as it is without some harbinger of doom dragging us into the slough of despair every evening.

In short, the news, papers and TV, have become dull and dreary places where you go to slash your wrists. They are about as much fun as slamming your fingers in a drawer. Eventually the Russian people developed a wry sense of humour regarding their press. There comes a point when the unrelenting propaganda is no longer the opiate it once was. I think our news outlets have trodden the same boards and are getting the same audience response.

Today’s letters page in The Herald is simply unbelievable in slagging off SNP Government. Same correspondents names rotating in various newspapers on a regular basis. Amazing how these names seldom appear together the same day in the the same newspaper, it does get a bit boring.

10 out of 10 for the co-ordinated unionist campaign. On the plus side, as it is a small cabal of the same people writing in, perhaps they are not receiving many anti-SNP letters?

Back in 2013 I would still buy the occasional Record, it had always been my paper of choice and certainly when growing up with it it wasn’t too bad.

Then when the Independence campaign started in earnest it was pretty obvious in which direction the Record was leaning. You were able to comment on the articles online in 2013 and if the topic was Independence the vast majority of commenters were clearly in favour.

They were not shy either in telling the writer of the article where their story was mince. So what next?

Well just like the BBC they shutdown all comments and I’ve no doubt they have paid a heavy price for that decision. The daily records problem in my view is that it failed to acknowledge that a large chunk if not a majority of readers were in support of Independence.

It choose the wrong side. Oops too late now I wouldn’t read your rag for free, you failed the communities you claimed to support and proved yourselves to be just another British Nationalist propaganda sheet.

I’ve made this point before and, as it’s as relevant now as it was previously, I’ll make it again.

I grew out of the Daily Record aged around 35 and started buying the Daily Mail. I was an SNP-supporting but politically naive Scot enjoying the articles and the clever and mature writing – a far cry from the ‘Give ’em Beckham and back-page puns’ style that polluted the Record’s childish copy.
However, it became apparent – and ever-more irritating – that each time I bought the Daily Mail it’s front page was given over to indiscriminate Labour-bashing on a grand scale. Like I said, I was always an SNP vote and had no interest in supporting London Labour, the point being that my increasing ire wasn’t based upon subjective love for my Party or grievance over bias, but from a guy with no dog in the fight.
Back-then (long before the SNP and independence were a thing) the Mail’s MO was hammering Labour and hammering them relentlessly at every opportunity – much like what we’re experiencing in Scotland today, except it’s not only from the Daily Mail, but from ALL of the print media.

Anyway, it got to the stage where I could no longer reconcile my respect for the majority of the content with the narrow-minded and quite odious nature of its front page. I stopped buying it.
It occurred to me then that perhaps the whole of England consisted of either a nasty right-wing, ugly crew of Tories, or – judging by the front pages of the Sun or the News of the World – a distasteful crew of slobbering football hooligans with a penchant for beer and salacious stories of nudge-nudge sex.

No, we weren’t perfect in Scotland (the BBC and our ‘Scottish’ print media reminding us of this daily) but the whole newspaper thing just turned me off and I stopped buying the bile. That’s what’s happening in Scotland, on a national level, today.

It’s my personal opinion that 98% of Scots – no matter their political persuasion – are sick to death of negative news about their country. People aren’t stupid, they see what’s going on every bit as clearly as I did 20-odd years ago.
Hell mend the editors and owners. I sincerely hope every newspaper in this country (National excepted) sinks to oblivion, for all their rottenness, lies and fabricated anti-news. Yep.

I think it’s important that news should give both sides of the political views. I used to be stupid enough to believe thats what they did. When the sun newspaper backed Tony Blair we voted him in. When the Sun backed the Tories the English voted them in. Stopped buying after had my eyes opened to what they really are.. propaganda for the newspaper owner

The depth of newspapers stupidity is staggering, in order to protect their failing Union they’re prepared to go out of business in the hope that their failing Union political leaders will keep bailing them out (BBC)

See if they just told the truth folk would buy their product because it was a good product

Mornin Nana, another fine selection for us.
I’ll have to sit down later and read them, got to go out shortly, but it’s my birthday, a big one. Made it to the three score years and ten, so I’m going to enjoy it and dae whit a want.Yay.

Big family do tomorrow for both of our big birthdays and the ruby wedding. I’m worried that I might end up like Cactus blethering away afore the day’s oot.

Cubby – You mean you haven’t noticed BBC Scotland still uses a distorted weather map, shown at a tilt, encompassing great swathes of Cumbria and Northumberland. BBC national now uses a superb map that shows Scotland’s true size (and not before time) I wonder why BBC Scotland can’t bear to do that!

Cubby- Forgot to add that Jamie McIvor last week repeated Richard Leonard’s FMQ lie about one of the questions facing five year olds being “What is another name for a hummingbird’s beak” when the actual question is “What is another name for a bird’s beak” with the hummingbird just being used as the example above the question. He’s not daft, he knew he was lying.

I understand the points being made above concerning alienating potential support but,

I genuinely find it hard to understand how any decent self respecting Scot, (or for that matter, human being ) could sit among the Rangers support, listening to the bile they have been belting out every week, and still support that team.

The sycophantic cap in hand, groveling ‘please love us England, like we love you’ makes me want to vomit.

They are a disgusting stain on Scotland and make any no effort to hide this fact, whatsoever!

If someone reading my comment is genuinely decent but still supports them ( as an Arab, I do understand how you can’t just pretend you don’t care about the team you have always supported )
I’m sorry if reading this offends you, but c’mon tae, you surely can’t feel comfortable sitting in that cesspit among a bunch of ‘ Plastic Nigel’s ‘ without thinking ‘ do I want to be a part of this’

If you do.. then don’t be surprised when you get treated with scorn by other football fans, or non-fans alike.

@Footsoldier 11.42: for the first time in years I happened to look at The Herald yesterday (while leaving a copy of The National behind in an EK café).

Like you I was amazed at the blatantly obvious attack on the SG in letter after letter. I think only the last one had any attempt at balance. The letters page often used to be the best part of that paper, with lots of pro-indy contributors in the past. Thankfully, I stopped buying it in July 2014 after an awful report on Ian Wood’s lies on oil.

It will be no loss if it finally tanks but the lifeboat of BBC money for the employment of “journalists” in “regional” newspapers will probably keep this propaganda sheet going.

The last stand for the Union is coming and The Herald can will have to behave accordingly.

Wow. First reaction to that is – why on Earth would British Intelligence need to bug EU meetings when the EU’s position couldn’t be any clearer??? Surely a five year old can get gist of Europe’s position without reverting to covert surveillance…

Then you read that article and gist is the Westminster Government managed to do an “Outlander”, and prevent public access to a series of bleak and highly damaging slides produced for internal consumption by the EU which are very critical of Brexit.

The stooshie is over how the British came to be aware of the slides and their content, which were restricted and EU confidential, and were able to move in time to prevent them being made public, hence the possibility of espionage…

As if the spy story wasn’t grave enough, surely the bigger story is that the EU has a slideshow about Brexit which is described as “politically explosive”. Yikes.

The next bigger aspect of the story however must be the credible possibility of British Intelligence bugging the EU, just when trust between Westminster and Brussels could hardly be any lower and the relationship more strained…

Land of hope and glory? Hopeless inglorious bastards seems more apt.

No wonder they place all their faith in the British stiff upper lip / spirit of the Blitz seeing them through, because it seems they’re absolutely determined to create a friendless apocalyptic barren wasteland for British interests everywhere else.

The BritNats seem determined that Britain must purified by flame and reduced to ash before the British Phoenix can rise.

Good shout Harry I stand corrected. Must have mentally assumed BBC Scotland were using the new UK map for their forecasts as well. The new UK map is a superb presentation as you say so it is another example of propaganda in Scotland that they do not use it for Scottish weather forecasts.

Is there no limit to their propaganda? I suspect not. Why does BBC 2 Scotland not have an HD version? The BBC can find plenty money to finance all these private newspapers in Scotland but not an HD Channel for BBC 2 Scotland. You

neil brown says:
What about the Aberdeen P&J and the Dundee Courier ?
Although the media you would like you to think Scotland ended at the Central Belt. Almost as bad as the BBC.

The two most reactionary papers in Scotland are the P& J and the Courier. But all that’s available. I agree that we (and by that I mean the media) totally disregard the 50% of Scotland’s population that lives outside the Central Belt.

@Patrick Roden re Rangers: I noticed the SoW were playing in their orange change strip last night, which I think says it all about their “values”. The decent (and yes-voting) Rangers fans I know just shake their heads and look embarrassed when I mention stuff like this but they don’t seem to have the heart to confront the sickness in their midst.

Like you, I support a “diddy team”, as Jonathan Watson would term us, and the years when the Govan team were out of the top league, combined with the OBFA legislation, were ones when it was much more pleasurable to attend football matches.

James “That’s not the point” Kelly is dancing with the devil but is too stupid to realise what he has done.

What you say is correct but your comments lack balance as there is offensive chanting and offensive/ obnoxious behaviour at lots of football/sports grounds – some locations a lot worse than others. So I take it you no longer go to football matches. Or is it the case Arabs are all gentlemen? I assume they did not throw bananas at black players in the past? Or abuse officials or pitch invade?

It is a great pity the Scotgov Offensive behaviour law has been overturned by Britnats. The Britnats love to create divide and rule. The whole football sectarian thing is part of it. Well done James Kelly.

Patrick if we all followed your advice no decent person would attend any sports ground. Just leave it for the thugs and morons to rule the roost?

Given recent headlines about the new forth crossing and the potential impact of the on going Brexit circus on (amongst others) infrastructure investment, I’d have thought this week’s major story ought reasonably to have been the viaduct collapse on the main Italy-France transport corridor near Genoa.

Assuming budgetary constraints from poor circulation figures (rather than ignorant intent) prevented the papers listed from sending a couple of journalists a translator and a photographer to the Italian Riviera for a fortnight, perhaps they could pool together to fund a uniquely Scottish Reuters type service to deliver more detailed, relevant and educational coverage of world events in preparation for the interesting times ahead.

@
Patrick Roden says:
17 August, 2018 at 10:05 am
Re Rangers:
I genuinely find it hard to understand how any decent self respecting Scot, (or for that matter, human being ) could sit among the Rangers support, listening to the bile they have been belting out every week, and still support that team.
================================

Agree completely. If they don’t agree with all the bile coming out (and I’ve heard it – when they visit my team’s stadium) than why don’t they do something? Organise counter chants, petition the club? Or are they scared? If so then that suggests a very large majority – of thousands – supports the hate-fest, perhaps even a majority.

The club owners do nothing of course for a simple reason. Back when Murray was in charge, he campaigned for the fans to tone down the bigoted stuff, because he was afraid it might get them banned from Europe.

But since the club was reformed as a new entity, the worst has been condoned, simply because encouraging that behaviour was seen as a way of attaching the fans to the new club by connecting to the old feelings.

The results of this have been seen recently with foreign fans being stabbed near Ibrox and Rangers fans rioting in Slovenia. They imagine they represent our country. Worrying thing is other countries might start to believe them if it keeps up.

Rangers fans at East End Park the day following the assassination of President Kennedy nearly put me off football for life. Fortunately I have lived most of my life away from Scotland so have not been as affected by the horror of them very often. One of my best ever friends (since 1962) was a Rangers fan, a very decent man when he was young about his team and could be objective. He went to work in England and abroad and the last time I saw him (about 8 years ago) he had become a bigot, polite, but still a bigot. Poor soul has since died. In my view many of that ilk are conflicted – don’t know what they are. Brainwashed with Britishness and the royalty and their place as “the people”. And yet, is it not England where they always behave at their worst – Manchester, Sunderland spring to mind. There are, i’m sure, many Rangers fans, who see through the brainwashing, and just want to support their team for reasons of geography and success but the club itself will, in an independent Scotland, have to rethink their priorities.

Cubby- re your point to Patrick, I can’t think of any other support that causes trouble with the regularity of the “Rangers” support. Contrast their behaviour this season, at least one unsavoury incident at every match, to Aberdeen winning friends in Burnley recently with their excellent behaviour. I saw Burnley fans applauding the Dons fans as they were leaving, as the pundits spoke on the pitch.

When other clubs fans do step out of line it tends to be clamped down on quickly by the club and the decent fans. Fans singing about hating rivals shouldn’t be lumped alongside the poisonous hatred from the Ibrox legions. Celtic fans aren’t whiter than white either but on the whole their behaviour is chalk and cheese compared to “Rangers”.

Regarding your point about “did they (Dundee United) not throw bananas at black players in the past?”. The only supports I can recall doing that (to Rangers’ Mark Walters) were Celtic and Hearts. I stand to be corrected. I know Celtic’s Paul Elliott got some treatment too from Rangers fans (the era being late 80s/early 90s) but can’t recall if they were profligate with fruit!

I know there are plenty of decent Rangers supporters. I know I won’t live to see it but bring on the day when Rangers and Celtic fans support their teams without any pre-requirement of political or religious affiliations. This will only happen in a free and independent Scotland!

Trying to fit a business plan to one’s political bias, was never a sensible idea. Partisan stances don’t sell to moderate individuals, frankly. Simples.

The mass media, democracy and the public sphere

Chapter 2 The mass media, democracy and the public sphere
INTRODUCTION

In this chapter we explore the role played by the mass media in political participation, in particular in the relationship between the laity and established power. There is a long-running debate in media theory over the ways in which the media not only disseminate elite, critical opinion but also influence the formation, expression and consumption of public opinion (Halloran, 1970; Lang and Lang, 1968). How far do the mass media provide a public sphere in which citizens may debate issues in a democratic forum and in which those in power may be held accountable to the public? In this chapter we examine the way television is responding to economic and regulatory pressures to move from a public service model towards a market model (Blumler, 1992; Collins et al. 1986; Garnham, 1990; Qualter, 1991); the media are changing their relation to political processes….

With the ascendance of liberal democracy, propaganda activities have vastly increased. The main aim of propaganda has been to protect state-corporate power from the threat of public understanding and participation. Because of its societal importance for public opinion formation, the news media constitutes an obvious channel for the dissemination of propaganda. However, contemporary communication, media and journalism studies have mostly neglected to critically assess the news media’s role in producing and distributing propaganda. In fact, despite of the news media’s integration into the state-corporate nexus, the term propaganda is rarely used in academic treatises on the news media. Furthermore, only a small number of scholars have engaged in elaborating a systematic understanding of the manifold propaganda techniques that are currently applied in liberal democracies. To fill these research gaps, this article maps out various concepts of propaganda and relates them to the process and content of the news media. On the basis of theoretical and empirical studies, the article demonstrates how different forms of propaganda can manifest in news media content. Based on an integration with, as well as a development of, existing literature, the essay aims to build a tool box that can be applied and refined in future studies in order to detect propaganda in news media texts.

Bill Mclean 2.03pm. As someone here also posted. The epl dont want us in england.( celtic or rangers).so much for the ,we love you Scotland dont leave us, they (sky) give us sh**e money for our football compared to even the championship down here. What part of constantly being told ‘your sh**e Scotland and so is your football. Dont Scottish football fans understand. YOU ARE NOT WANTED DOWN IN ENGLAND. So grow a pair and stop being f***ing patronised. Vote for independence.

One makes reference to a derogatory term for a disabled person, while another calls people shopping at supermarket chain Lidl “chavs” and “pikeys”.

My experience of Tories is, that’s the way they think. They generally aren’t ‘nice’ people. They usually keep their guard up, but it inevitably slips and the underlying attitudes are exposed.

Social media adds a new dimension – time. When people publically type derogatory, racist, prejudiced, libellous, or even just plain stupid things, they can come back to haunt them years later.

The simple thing would be to be honest and open and say what you mean and think. Then we would all know who the assholes are immediately! Tories are unfortunately good at hiding it from plebs (as they would see it). They need the support of enough gullible plebs and so need to hid many of their personal opinions.

Just so, Scotspatriot but I believe they were infiltrated by sectarian shipyard workers and we all know the result.

Ironically, the three yes-voting Rangers fans of my acquaintance rarely if ever go but simply maintain a childhood allegiance. Maybe they aren’t fully aware of the present horrors, which can only get worse now OBFA is gone.

Slow news day for Scottish politics so some might be interested in this warning over cryptocurrency scams updated today by the Financial Conduct Authority(FCA) in the UK.

“UK consumers are being increasingly targeted by cryptocurrency-related investment scams…

Cryptocurrency fraudsters tend to advertise on social media – often using the images of celebrities or well-known individuals to promote cryptocurrency investments. The ads then link to professional-looking websites. Consumers are then persuaded to make investments with the firm using either cryptocurrencies or traditional currencies.

The firms operating the scams are usually based outside of the UK but will claim to have a UK presence, often a prestigious City of London address.”

“10 out of 10 for the co-ordinated unionist campaign. On the plus side, as it is a small cabal of the same people writing in, perhaps they are not receiving many anti-SNP letters”?

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Footsoldier, that is actually an excellent point you make.

Why are same people, on weekly basis, being printed in same newspapers ?

One could easily surmise that the green ink gang are unpaid columnists. Imagine if anyone else were to write endless letters to same newspapers on same subject…would the newspaper just publish their letters week after week over a prolonged period…..or would they, the newspaper, become aware of the somewhat obsessive manic compulsion that is abundantly apparent in the succession of letters targeting one thing and one thing only….via same people !!! Duh !

Think you will find that any readers of these newspapers who have recognised same names getting letters printed on tap with same anti SNP message will be able to distinguish the bias contained in their drivel ridden pulp combined with an unhealthy, unhinged and glaringly obsessive hatred of the SNP….sure many will be saying…”Christ gae it a rest…we get it yea dinnae like the SNP…now for Christ sake gae us some peace ya radges” !! Wahahaha .

One can always certainly ascertain the political allegiance of a newspaper via the types of letters they publish week after week…nudge nudge wink wink…who needs headlines when you have rent a unionist mob willing to do the job for free Lol.

Bobp at 3.15 and 3.25. Agree with you totally. We can only build the decent, tolerant society we crave with independence. Of course our masters are terrified of independence and the loss of their “divide and rule” control! Lastly, i’m keeping the saltire on my driving licence. Do you think they will take me to court?
No! The British state hates to be embarrassed. White knighting is their game – not truth!

My quest to find The National in my local shops today failed. Non, nil, nought. The piles of ‘The Times’ though, bloody hell, never seen so many, it was crazy. Must have been about 40 of them, with god knows how many pages because just one, yes cringe I touched it, seemed to have millions of pages, no idea what it was headlining but just the sheer number of them, never usually that many, are they just hopeful some will actually sell?

All very prominent, all in your face, but no one buying. Bizarre. Then, the Britnat flag, everywhere, lots produce reduced because even in Edinburgh new town people are avoiding those, and tons of very large ‘Empire’ bicuits, pink, gross, no sign of which bakery, blank packets, which I found quite weird.

It’s best to stay home and bake, to avoid the Britnats flag, and the daily propaganda.

Dundee – hotel booked for Mr & Mrs Clootie 🙂
Looking forward to a walk with my fellow independence supporters.
A Saturday night out and sight seeing on Sunday. I hope it is the biggest March yet…keep up the momentum and the build towards Edinburgh.

There was recent CSPAN programme shown on the British Broadcasting Corporation Parliament channel where the presenter quoted a respected journalist who had said that unless you reported both sides of an argument then all you are doing is spreading propaganda.

Journalism nowadays everywhere in the Western world is at best opinion and at worst, propaganda. In Scotland it is simply propaganda and as other posters have mentioned is not working due to the sheer relentless onslaught of negativity towards the Scottish Government and the independence cause.

People support football teams for different reasons and have complex and varied backgrounds which influence them and similarily people often support the same political views or parties for completely different reasons. The clever thing to do in winning an argument or persuading people to reconsider their position is to identify common ground and exploit that position. ‘Othering’ large groups, and excluding is negative and counter productive and is no different to the behaviour some on here complain of. Confronting people on the extreme is less effective than focusing on the margins but what is most damaging is to demonise those on the margin. Those are the people who will decide whether you get an independent Scotland or not.

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Mundell said the withdrawal bill would return powers to Scotland, it didn't, he said he'd amend the bill so it would, he didn't, he said the Lords would amend it so it would, they didn't, he said he would resign if NI got a bespoke deal, they did, he didn't.. #ScotRef /1